Aeluria
The man on Aeluria sighed and checked his watch as he waited for Anael Noguera to appear at their rendezvous. In the beginning, his status had allowed him to come and go from the island as he wished, unlike the rest of the population. But with Chaher's death, he was just as trapped as the others. He recognised the nicotine withdrawal symptoms within himself, but he had no time to deal with them.
Anael Noguera stormed across the beach towards him in a manner quite unlike his normal cautious approaches. As soon as he was next to the man, Anael let loose.
"You promised me I'd be out of here by... this! I swear to Arbera* I will do nothing more for you! I am done!"
"I'm sorry to hear that, Mr Noguera. Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?"
"No! I don't believe a word you say!"
"So be it," the man said, then as casually as if he was taking his wallet out his pocket, drew his weapon and shot Anael through the head.
"Cheer up," he said to the body. "You're the lucky one, you know. I know what's coming for me, and nothing I can do to stop it. I'd join you, but that would be admitting defeat."
*
Keitha Noguera had been meeting with one of the Kivasekians when the news came. She'd been concerned that her Cabinet was about to oust her, and she'd been on the verge of asking them to prevent it when Alyssa burst in.
"Ma'am, I need to see you outside. It's urgent," Alyssa urged. Keitha had sighed and apologised to the man she was meeting.
"What is it?" she asked when they got outside.
"Ma'am, you need to sit down," Alyssa had said, gesturing at a nearby seat. Warily, Keitha had complied. "The body of an Aelurian civilian was found with a gunshot wound to the head on the beach earlier. He had been dead for a number of hours. I'm afraid... I'm afraid it was your husband, Anael. I am so sorry."
Keitha hadn't quite believed the news at first. She cancelled the rest of her meetings, and went to examine the body. It was only there that she finally understood that Alyssa spoke the truth. She had held it together until she was back in Julena House. She had gone to lie down on her bed, and had discovered an envelope on the pillow, addressed to her in Anael's handwriting.
She sat now, holding it in her hands, too scared to open it and wondering what was inside. Eventually, she opened it up, and pulled out a handwritten letter.
"Dear Keitha,
I want to start by saying that I did truly love you. All those years we were together, they were worth everything to me. But I never agreed with your politics. I think, deep down, you knew that. It was never a problem for me, until you became set on this declaration of independence.
You made that deal with Suleman Chaher, and he came to me because he knew. He asked me if you would keep your end of it, if you would wait. I spoke the truth. No, she has no intention of doing so. Over the next few months, that was not the only question Suleman Chaher asked of me. When he found you, to tell you Walker was behind the assassination attempt, it was because I said where you were.
I thought I was fighting for Lauchenoiria, for what I believed in. I thought I could save us from what's coming. I know now that isn't true. And so, I have to go, I have to confront the people I so foolishly worked for. After, I need to stop this. I hope one day I'll come back, my love, when all this is over and done and we are all safe once more.
With all the love in the universe,
Anael."
Keitha lost her grip on the letter and it fluttered to the ground, as the tears flowed from her eyes. She sat like that for so long, that she missed the news until the next morning.
Near Elopolis
The city of Elopolis looked to Jae Chung like it hadn't been touched by the war. The city had been snatched from the Junta by the Resistance so slowly and stealthily it had avoided most of the destruction brought upon Annatown and some of the smaller towns she had passed through.
If she had been driving, she would have reached the city from her present position in fifteen minutes. As it was, she predicted it would take her several hours. She walked along the rural roads, passing through deserted farms and seeing no other people for most of the journey.
At one point, while passing by a field full of some crop she didn't recognise, she came upon a boy of about ten. He screamed and curled up in a ball.
"Don't shoot me!" he said in Spanish, visibly terrified and crying.
"I'm not going to shoot you," she replied in the same language. She'd spent long enough in the English-speaking north that it felt odd to her to come upon random people speaking Spanish.
"Kerlians always shoot the boys, or make us into slaves!"
"I'm not Kerlian, I'm with the Resistance," she said, trying to soothe the boy.
"You're not?" he said, peeking out from his arms and staring at her. Seeing the lack of Kerlian insignia, he unfurled and stood up. "Sorry, the Kerlians always come here. They take our food and they kill people."
"I thought this was Resistance territory."
"Is, but the Kerlians want to take it so there's all these little groups of them around. Be careful," he warned.
"I will, thanks."
She went on her way, wishing she had something to give to the boy, but she herself hadn't eaten in several days, and money had long since ceased to have any real meaning in her life. Guess Chaher got his communist utopia, she thought, smiling grimly at the irony.
*
Laura Moore had been having a good-natured debate about education policy with someone from Victoria Juárez's provincial government, when the news arrived. They were in a shopping mall food court that had been converted into the Resistance canteen, when someone had rushed to a TV screen and turned on the government's propaganda channel, a smartphone clattering to the ground behind them.
"... apologise to the people of Lauchenoiria for the deceit. I am sorry for the hurt I may have caused, and hereby resign my position within the Lauchenoirian Resistance."
Sonja Alvarez looked like she'd been crying as she addressed the camera, and then the picture cut back to a studio.
"It seems like the tape released by this woman has sent shockwaves throughout the country. Many so-called "˜Resistance' terrorists have begun turning themselves in and recognising our government after this revelation. They are discovering the truth that this "˜Resistance' is led by foreign elements determined to subvert our government."
"What is this?" someone in the canteen called.
"Watch!" the person who had put it on the screen replied.
"The Council of Kerlile have provided us with photographs that prove "˜Sonja' speaks the truth. Here is a picture of the young Jennifer Hale, and you can quite clearly see the resemblance. Here's a more recent picture of her sister Cornelia, and you can clearly tell that the woman known to the "˜Resistance' as Sonja Alvarez is in fact Jennifer Hale, heir to the Hale family seat on the Council of Kerlile."
All at once the room erupted in chatter. Moore brought out the phone that Juárez had supplied her with and found the video on the Resistance channels. It showed Sonja revealing that she was really Jennifer Hale, that she had lied and was returning to Kerlile.
Moore jumped up from her seat, an action that was mirrored throughout the entire canteen hundreds of times over. She rushed out of the room, already dialling the number they used to contact the Usera Resistance faction. The number was disconnected. She tried every number she could think of for Usera, including the old numbers for Josephine and Sonja she knew were no longer in use.
Eventually she gave up and called Victoria.
"Is it true?"
"Everything about it suggests the video is genuine. And... I mean, they have a point. The pictures the Junta is showing do have a clear family resemblance. Kerlile took Usera yesterday, and it's entirely possible Sonja could have been forced to make the video, but..."
"What would Kerlile gain from faking it?"
There was silence over the line for a few seconds until Moore spoke again.
"Are they right about people deserting us?"
"No, far as we can tell, that part is just propaganda. But we took heavy losses in Usera. They've taken a lot of prisoners as far as we can tell, but there are many others dead. Some of the locals who were using our backroad into social media have been saying the city reeks of dead bodies. And some of the local wildlife is venturing a bit closer to the city than usual."
"Gross, Tori."
"With Walker dead and Sonja... not, we really need you to have a more public presence. Our supporters need to see that the Resistance has a leader and that we're not dead yet."
"Fine," Moore sighed. "What do you want me to do?"
Carville
Will Jones sat in a lab in Carville University performing tests on the sample that had arrived last night (or, more precisely, early that morning). The man who had delivered the sample seemed to vanish into thin air after Will had confirmed his identity.
A pair of local Resistance members stood watching him, having intercepted their communications, as he had expected. He knew a bunch of Maximusian soldiers were outside as well. It made him nervous.
"This is going to take a while, you know," he said to the pair watching. If they heard him, they didn't acknowledge it. "You know I'm not on Chaher's side, right?"
"Chaher is dead," one of them said.
"Yeah, I know that, but..."
"Get on with it," the other ordered.
Will turned back to his work.
Usera
Major Amanda Littlewood stood surveying the city that she now supposed was in her hands. Colonel Conde had shipped out with Jennifer Hale and Josephine Alvarez earlier that day, back to Kerlile, leaving Littlewood in command, at least for the time being.
Littlewood hadn't had an easy time of it so far. What had initially seemed like an honour now stressed her out. To begin with, they had gone to liberate the prisoners kept by the Resistance, to discover a group of the Resistance's own who had attempted to overthrow Hale. Littlewood ordered their execution. Hale was a traitor, but she was a Hale.
Then there was Olivia Quíros. The little anti-Chaher reporter who had been turned in Ginsap. Quíros immediately began trying to suck up to Littlewood. She didn't trust the slimy coward one bit, and had tried to keep the woman behind bars. Quíros had begged her to let her out, and if not to kill her. Anything but further imprisonment. Littlewood had walked away.
Once she received word the plane had landed safely in Kerlile, she released the tape Conde had forced Hale to record. When Conde had threatened to shoot Hale's little pet teenager Leonie, the young girl had tried to tell Hale not to do it, but when the gun was held to her head, the teenager had shrieked. Needless to say, Hale had complied.
*
Leonie Bennett couldn't tell if the dampness on her clothes was from tears, sweat or something entirely nastier. She was being held in what must have once been a community centre, on rows of plastic chairs designed for schoolchildren. After the Kerlians had taken away Josephine and... they had separated her from the two men. They'd been taken away in some van, she'd been brought here.
Most of the other women in the room were injured. The pair across from her had tried to start a conversation shortly after Leonie had been brought there. The Kerlians had beaten the pair so badly a puddle of blood now stained the floor in front of them.
"No talking! That was your warning! Next person who breaks the rules won't be so lucky!"
If that was "˜lucky' Leonie did not want to be the next person who broke the rules. Every woman in the room was handcuffed, which led Leonie to spend fifteen minutes wondering just where they got so many pairs of handcuffs. The ones on her own wrists were uncomfortably tight.
At some point in the middle of the night, one of the women had asked to go to the bathroom. The Kerlians had dragged her outside. She didn't return. Sometime later, Leonie heard a scream from outside that made her blood run cold.
She had plenty of time to think over the events of the previous night.
"Do stand up, Jennifer. Now your sister has passed, it is time for you to take your rightful place as the Hale family representative on the Council of Kerlile."
"Is that true?" Josephine had said to Sonja.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Sonja had sobbed. "I didn't want to lie to you, but..."
"Get the apes out of here," Conde had said, gesturing to the two men, one lying on the floor clutching his bleeding shoulder. Some of the Kerlians had dragged the pair away. "And Jennifer's little pet too."
Apparently, that had referred to Leonie, because she found herself dragged to her feet and out of the room. They were taken out of the cathedral. The two men were added to a group of prisoners being loaded into a van. She was handed over to a different set of Kerlians, who dragged her across the city.
At some point, Leonie slept, though she didn't know how. She was woken by the door banging open. Four armed Kerlians stood at the door, and one walked down the rows, pointing at some people. The Kerlian guards dragged those people out the door. Leonie was not chosen.
The rows were told to move down, filling the spaces of those who had been taken, and the end of the room filled up with a new group of prisoners who seemed to be in even worse shape than the first. The new group included a girl who looked even younger than Leonie.
It wasn't until much later in the day, when the room had started to smell like a badly cleaned public toilet, when Leonie was finally moved. Throughout the day, they had taken seemingly arbitrary groups away. When Leonie was finally chosen, she felt more relieved than terrified. The young girl was in her group as well.
They were loaded into the back of a van, which wasn't really large enough to hold their number. They were still handcuffed, but no Kerlians remained in the back of the van. They had been moving for about ten minutes before anyone dared talk. At first, they only spoke in whispers.
"Does anyone know what's going on?"
"I don't think I want to."
"I heard that the Kerlians brought their whole army here and now control half the country."
"No, I heard they bombed Laeral and then the whole Coalition withdrew to go help them, leaving us to die."
"Does it even matter anymore?"
"What are they going to do to us?"
"I heard Kerlians torture their prisoners for fun. If we're lucky, some of our own will blow this thing up before we get to our destination."
"I heard Sonja Alvarez is really some kind of Kerlian princess and sold us all out, and now the whole population of Lauchenoiria are to be enslaved by the Kerlians."
"You know nothing," Leonie had said to that. "Sonja wouldn't do that."
"Yeah well, she's not Sonja, is she? She's Jennifer Hale."
"I don't care, I know her, she wouldn't."
Kerlile
When Sonja Alvarez looked in the mirror, she saw Jennifer Hale. For the first time in twenty years, she couldn't push her past behind her. Jennifer had aged in the years since Sonja had shoved her into a closet in the back of her mind.
She'd been split from Josephine, who was refusing to speak to her, upon arrival in Kerlile. Josephine was taken god knows where. Sonja was delivered to the Council building in Grapevale. Each Council member was provided with an apartment in the building, for occasions where they might not wish to return home after a session.
The Hale apartment was still full of her sister's belongings. The young Cornelia had tormented Jennifer. Whoever the latter was now, she felt shockingly little emotion at the thought of her sister's passing. She didn't even care to learn how it had happened.
She'd tried the outer door on the apartment, but it was predictably locked. As were the windows, which were made of bulletproof glass, as was standard in Council buildings. The only books in the apartment appeared to be Kerlian propaganda or misandrist literature. The television only showed the News of Kerlile, a propaganda programme. There was no computer and her phone had been taken.
She'd tried watching the TV for a while, but the reports of the war from the Kerlian side were depressing, and when they started broadcasting the message she'd been forced to record she couldn't bear to watch any longer.
Eventually, a pair of Council guards appeared to inform her the Council had requested her presence in an hour, and she ought to prepare herself. She was filthy from the war, and decided to shower. She had fully intended to turn up to the meeting in her Resistance clothes, but they had vanished while she showered and so she had been forced into one of her sister's ridiculous outfits. The Kerlian brand of faux feminist feudalism looked ridiculous.
When she stood outside the Council chamber awaiting her summons, no guards stood visibly nearby. She knew, of course, that there were probably at least fifteen pairs of eyes on her, and that if she tried to run she wouldn't get far. The atrium outside the chamber hadn't changed much since she'd last been there, when she was about eleven? Twelve?
The door to the chamber opened. Jennifer Hale cast off the last piece of Sonja Alvarez that remained. If she was to survive this, she would need to be a Hale, for once.
"Who enters this chamber?" a voice called.
"Jennifer Eleonora Hale, daughter of Camila Wren Hale," Jennifer answered. The words came so easy to her, like riding a bike years after the last time you did.
"Does this Council permit Jennifer Eleonora Hale to enter?"
A chorus of "aye" went around the room. A small part of Sonja that clung on fidgeted with impatience at the pointless ritual. The lights came up fully, and Sonja stepped forwards, facing the semicircle where the Council sat. The fifth chair from the left was empty. The ridiculous crest her great-grandmother had designed adorned it.
"You may address the Council."
Jennifer glanced around the room. All eyes were on her.
"I call upon the esteemed members of this Council to cut the bull and tell me what they want."
Anita Patel raised an eyebrow as she spoke.
"We would like you to say the Council vow and take your family's seat."
"We all dream of impossible things," Jennifer replied.
"It is disappointing to hear you say that," Letitia Greenwood, daughter of the current President said. "You are a part of us."
"Didn't you get the memo? I left precisely because I don't want any part of this."
"We encourage you to think this over, perhaps you will change your mind," suggested Natalia Hart.
"I doubt it."
"You may leave," said Anita Patel, in a voice that made it clear it was not a suggestion. Jennifer gave an exaggerated mock curtsey and then spun to exit the room. Upon her exit, she was escorted back to the apartment. Inside was now a quantity of food, but nothing else to entertain her. The door was locked loudly behind her.
*
Josephine Alvarez sat in a cell that was clearly designed by someone who watched a few too many fantasy movies. The entirety of Kerlile had that aesthetic, in fact, but Josephine had not had time to see much of it, having been taken to the cell with a bag over her head.
"Where is my wife?" Josephine had asked the guard as she locked the door. The guard ignored her. There was nothing in the cell but an uncomfortable looking bed and a bucket that appeared to be for the purpose of relieving yourself.
"Not again," Josephine had commented to herself. The place looked very little like Ginsap, but a prison is a prison, however weird the architect was. There were no other prisoners nearby. Wherever Josephine was, she guessed it wasn't the standard Kerlian form of incarceration. She'd read reports on Kerlian prisons once, when she was a government minister. If they were accurate, this was better.
She had been thoroughly searched, but was still wearing the clothes she'd had on in the cathedral. She didn't know how long it had been since she'd found out the truth about Sonja. She didn't feel tired yet, even though she had to have been awake for at least twenty-four hours. She didn't know if she'd ever be able to sleep again.
After about four hours of pointlessly trying to work out methods of escape and doing stretches just to keep herself occupied, Josephine heard the clunk of Kerlian boots in the corridor outside. She walked over to the bars. A Kerlian guard was passing. Josephine reached out and grabbed the guard by the sleeve.
"Where is my wife?" Josephine demanded.
The Kerlian reached with her other arm for an object that approximated a truncheon, and brought it down hard on Josephine's hand. She bit back a yell of pain and withdrew her arm. The guard continued on, without speaking a word.
"WHERE IS MY WIFE?" Josephine yelled after her. The guard didn't turn. Nobody else passed for another four hours after that. Someone came by and opened the cell, handing Josephine a bowl full of something that smelled worse than the food in Ginsap.
"You going to give me a spoon with this?" Josephine asked. The guard banged the door behind her and turned the lock. Josephine, who by this point was very hungry began to try and eat the sloppy porridge with her hands and mouth. It tasted like vomit. Josephine was not entirely sure that it wasn't.
Four more hours passed before another soul passed her way. At this point, she'd lay down on the bed and was trying to get some sleep. All the exhaustion that fear, anger and adrenaline had previously kept away had rushed her at once and she desperately needed sleep.
BANG.
She jumped. She didn't know where the noise came from. If she'd been in Usera, she'd have been worried it was the enemy sneaking up on her. She hoped someone had invaded Kerlile and would soon free her. It became clear within the next hour it wasn't. Josephine began to drift off to sleep again.
BANG.
Was she imagining it? Maybe the Kerlians had drugged her with hallucinogenics, or perhaps after her experience in Ginsap she could no longer tolerate confinement and was slowly going mad. She was exhausted, she'd work it out in the morning.
BANG.
The third time, it began to dawn on Josephine that perhaps the Kerlians didn't want her to go to sleep. She lay down once more, and feigned the start of sleep.
BANG.
Josephine Alvarez hated the Kerlians.
*Lurian (religion of Aeluria) Goddess of Nature
LIDUN President 2024 | she/her | Puppets: Kerlile, Glanainn, Yesteria, Zongongia, Zargothrax
